GM petitions to exempt China-built Buick Envision from tariffs

The company has shipped a six-month supply of Envisions to the US at the current 2.5-percent tariff rate.

General Motors has submitted a tariff exemption petition for the Buick Envision, one of few US-market vehicles currently manufactured in China.

The Trump administration has pushed for 25-percent tariffs on China-made automobiles, representing a 10-fold increase over the current 2.5-percent penalty.

The Envision represented around 19 percent of Buick brand sales in the US last year. The company builds approximately 200,000 units in China annually, but only around 41,000 are shipped to US showrooms. The company consequently argues that US assembly "is not an option" for the popular crossover.

"The profitability we generate on that vehicle, selling it in the US market, we obviously reinvest it here," GM president Dan Ammann said at a recent conference in Detroit, as quoted by Reuters.

To minimize the financial impact of increased tariffs, GM reportedly shipped in a six-month supply of Envisions before the tariffs jump to 25 percent.